Pozsgay, Imre (1933- )

Hungarian socialist politician, presidential candidate for the Hungarian Socialist Party from 1989. Influential in the democratization of Hungary 1988-89, he was rejected by the electorate in the parliamentary elections of March 1990, coming a poor third in his constituency.

Pozsgay joined the ruling Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP) in 1950 and was a lecturer in Marxism-Leninism and an ideology chief in Bacs county 1957-70. He was minister of education and culture from 1976 before becoming head of the Patriotic People's Front umbrella organization in 1982. Noted for his reformist social-democratic instincts, he was brought into the HSWP politburo in 1988 as a move towards political pluralism began. Having publicly declared that ‘communism does not work’, he helped remould the HSWP into the new Hungarian Socialist Party in 1989 and was selected as its candidate for the presidency.